Akira Toriyama
Akira Toriyama (鳥山 明, Toriyama Akira; born on April 5, 1955, in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture) is a widely acclaimed Japanese manga and game artist who lives in Kiyosu. He is most famously known for his creation of Dr. Slump in 1980 and Dragon Ball in 1984. Personality and personal life Akira Toriyama is a shy and reserved person who does not like interviews. His manga, including all of the 42 volumes of Dragon Ball, contain certain cover flap images that reference Toriyama's real life. It is mainly through those autobiographical elements that one can learn about his life. Most of the images contain drawings of an animated Toriyama, busy creating new manga ideas, or frustrated with work. A few cover flap images are real-life pictures of him, his pets, and his children. Akira Toriyama likes girls with short hair.1 He married the shojo manga artist Nara Mikami1 (aka Yoshimi)2 in 1982, and they have two children: a son named Sasuke, born in April 1987,1 and a daughter born in late 1990. During his career, Toriyama created over 40 manga series. Akira Toriyama has always been very concerned about his work, not hesitating to redraw again and again the same illustration because he does not find it perfect. Thus, he spent many sleepless nights working, and often complains of lack of free time. Conversely, he hates to dwell on an illustration, wanting to finish it in one draw as soon as possible in order to quickly judge the result. Toriyama prefers to live in quieter rural areas where he can devote himself to both his work and his family rather than in big cities. The assembly of scale models is one of his biggest hobbies; he possesses dozens of models, and often finds himself assembling models instead of working.3 Toriyama loves animals and has raised many; at the time of Dr. Slump, he owned two dogs named Turbo(-maru) and Turbo II,3 a cat named Ohiru, and many birds. At the time of Dragon Ball, he owned a Siberian husky named Matoryōshiku, and he also had a black cat called Koge,1 a Welsh Corgi dog named Toma (depicted on the cover flap of Kajika), a Cornish Rex cat (which he based the design for the character Beerus on),4 and many other birds. Akira Toriyama enjoys playing video games, watching movies (his favorites being Alien and Galaxy Quest), taking the air with his dog, and riding motorcycles (a passion that never left him since he got his license in 1984). Ironically, he claims that he does not have much interest in manga and anime, saying that he enjoyed it until he was about 11, after which his interest shifted to movies. Toriyama's greatest pleasure is having a great family life. Biography Childhood and debuts (1955-1979) Akira Toriyama is the son of Karazu and Tombi Toriyama, and he has an older sister named Uzura5 who has at least two children.36 He spent his childhood and much of his life in the countryside, far from the city. Since an early age, he had a passion for drawing and was influenced by the productions of the time (Disney movies and Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy). Besides some interests in films and television, he spent his school and college years making drawings and reading manga. Toriyama entered an art high school for varied training, allowing him to draw, even between games of billiards and bowling. Against the wishes of his parents, after his last high school year, Toriyama decided not to continue his studies at the university and began his working life. He had his first job at 20 years old at a company that makes advertising design. He resigned two and a half years later. In 1977, Akira Toriyama was seeking employment when he discovered the Monthly Young Jump Award, a contest sponsored by Shueisha, the largest manga publishing company in Japan. He participated in the contest twice, with Awawa World in 1977 and Mysterious Rain Jack in 1978, but he gained nothing. However, after Mysterious Rain Jack, Toriyama received the call from Kazuhiko Torishima, an employee who worked for Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump, who told him not to give up and to train harder. A few months after Kazuhiko Torishima's phone call, Akira Toriyama made his first published manga, Wonder Island. Published in Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine issue 52 in 1978, it failed to catch readers. The following year, Toriyama offered several new manga projects that were refused. This dark period could have ended his ambitions, but the little success of Tomato, Girl Detective in 1979 gave him some hope. Dr. Slump (1980-1984) In January 1980, Akira Toriyama achieved his first great success, Dr. Slump. He first gained fame from this manga, which was published in Weekly Shōnen Jump from January 1980 to August 1984. The series was also published in eighteen tankōbon volumes. Soon, letters of encouragement from readers began to rain. During the years 1981 to 1984, Akira Toriyama created a large number of short manga that fared well; notably Pola & Roid which allowed him to win the 1981 contest for the best Shōnen Jump manga artist, and Pink (1982). While he was drawing the wedding of the Dr. Slump characters Senbei Norimaki and Midori Yamabuki, Akira Toriyama himself married the shojo manga artist Nara Mikami1 (aka Yoshimi)2 in 1982. His wife stopped her career after this occasion. Also in 1982, Toriyama won the Shogakukan Manga Award for Dr. Slump for best shōnen or shōjo manga series of the year.7 These initial success allowed Toriyama to get a place among the new manga artists of the time, including Masakazu Katsura, who would become one of his best friends and with whom he would collaborate several years later for several manga. It is difficult to pinpoint the source of Toriyama's artwork inspiration at this point. He admires Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy,1 which he considers the creator an inspiration, he is a big fan of Godzilla and Ultraman, and he was impressed by Walt Disney's One Hundred and One Dalmatians, which he remembers for the great art. Jackie Chan's films, notably the Drunken Master movie, also influenced him greatly. Akira Toriyama has also stated that he is a big fan of the Star Wars series;3 his second manga, Mysterious Rain Jack (1978), is a Star Wars parody, the Star Wars character C-3PO appears in Wonder Island 2, R2-D2 and a Stormtrooper appear in Dr. Slump chapter 14, Senbei and Arale Norimaki are disguised as C-3PO and R2-D2 on the cover of Dr. Slump chapters 16, several Star Wars characters appear on the cover of Dr. Slump chapter 25, Arale and Gatchan appear disguised as Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader on the cover of Dr. Slump chapter 29, and Yoda has a cameo in Dr. Slump chapter 41. The success of Dr. Slump is such that the production company Toei Animation created two animated television adaptations: Dr. Slump and Arale-chan that ran from 1981 to 1986 on Fuji TV and spanned 243 episodes, and a remake titled Dr. Slump that ran for 74 episodes from November 26, 1997, to September 22, 1999. There are also eleven movies based on the Dr. Series, including one based on the 1997 remake. Prior to the 1997 anime remake, a four volume manga sequel was made by Takao Koyama and Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, Dr. Slump Returns, But Only For a Little While, which ran from 1994 to 1996. Toriyama himself later made a short sequel to Dr. Slump, titled Dr. Mashirito and Abale-chan (2007). From Dr. Slump, Toriyama wanted more than anything to keep some independence and founded his own working studio, Bird Studio, in 1983. That same year, he created two new manga, Dragon Boy and The Adventures of Tongpoo, that were prototypes for his following manga series, Dragon Ball. Dragon Ball (1984-1995) Dragon Ball was one of the linchpins for what is accepted as the "Golden Age of Jump". The success from Dragon Ball encouraged Akira Toriyama to continue working on the series from 1984 to 1995. During that 11-year period, he made 519 chapters collected into 42 tankōbon volumes. Each volume has an average of 200 pages, so the entire Dragon Ball storyline extends to almost 9,000 pages The benefit of the Dragon Ball quickly led to the creation of three animated television series (Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball GT) by Toei Animation, feature-length animated movies, and video games. Unlike Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT was not based on Akira Toriyama's original manga, instead being created by Toei Animation as a sequel. As the original creator of Dragon Ball, Akira Toriyama attended production meetings to provide input on the progression of the series, as well as give general thoughts on expanding upon the original material for the three anime series, and even providing character designs and the sketches for filler and movie characters. The Dragon Ball animes spawned over 500 episodes made in Japan, and are produced and licensed for North America and Australia by FUNimation Entertainment. Other success (1985-2008)Edit Manga and video games With Akira Sakuma, Akira Toriyama co-authored Hetappi Manga Kenkyūjo, a manga in which he explains how to create a manga. It was originally published in Fresh Jump between October 1982 to March 1984, and was made into one volume in 1985. Akira Toriyama's clean line and design sense led to jobs designing characters for the phenomenally popular Dragon Quest series of role-playing games (formerly called Dragon Warrior in North America) since 1986, as well as its second anime adaptation Dragon Warrior: Legend of the Hero Abel which started in December 1989 on Fuji TV. Several Dragon Quest monsters designed by Toriyama make cameo appearances during the preliminaries of the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament in Dragon Ball. In 1988, he created the puppet characters of a short film titled Apple Pop that was shown in April in Hirake Ponkikki, a Japanese TV program for children. That same year, Toriyama produced his first animated film, Kosuke & Rikimaru - The Dragon of Konpei Island, lasting one hour and featuring two young samurai who are the guardians of the island of Konpei on which lives a dragon. He worked in person on the animated movie adaptations of his manga Pink and Kennosuke-sama, shown as part of a triple feature with Dragon Ball Z: The Tree of Might during the Toei Anime Fair in July 1990.89 This same year, he started a new manga series titled Cashman - Saving Soldier which was published in V-Jump. A sequel to Cashman - Saving Soldier supervised by Akira Toriyama was made in 1998 by Takao Koyama and Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, titled New Cashman - Saving Soldier. In 1993, he wrote Go! Go! Ackman, a manga that has been adapted into a series of three platform games for the Super Famicom and a maze chase game (similar to Pac-Man) for Game Boy between 1994 and 1995. Go! Go! Ackman was also adapted into a fifteen minute animated movie that premiered at the 1994 V-Jump Festa. Between 1993 and 1995, exhibitions of works by Toriyama (Akira Toriyama Exhibition) had locations in major cities in Japan, and collected more than 400 000 visitors in three years. Toriyama was also the character designer for the Super Famicom, PlayStation, and Nintendo DS RPG Chrono Trigger (1994, 1999, and 2008), the fighting games Tobal No. 1 (1996) and its sequel Tobal 2 (1997) for the PlayStation, as well as the Mistwalker Xbox 360 exclusive RPG Blue Dragon (2006) and its anime adaptation (2008).10 Akira Toriyama stopped his Dragon Ball manga in 1995 in an open end, wanting to take a break and leisurely draw shorter stories.11 This same year, he gave several interviews for the Daizenshuu, a series of books which contain encyclopedic coverage of the Dragon Ball series. Toriyama's works after Dragon Ball was indeed short stories (100-200 page) and include Cowa! (1997–1998), Kajika (1998–1999), Sand Land (2000), and Nekomajin (1999–2005). He designed new covers when the Dragon Ball manga was re-released from December 4, 2002 to April 2, 2004 as part of the 34 volume Kanzenban collection, and he also slightly rewrote the final four ending pages. In 2003, Toriyama made a children's book titled Toccio the Angel. Toriyama's Bird Studio designed their own electric car in 2005: the QVolt. In winter 2006, Akira Toriyama worked on a one-shot called Cross Epoch in cooperation with the One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda. In 2007, Toriyama made a short sequel to Dr. Slump, titled Dr. Mashirito and Abale-chan and published in the fourth issue of the Weekly Shōnen Jump. Scale models In 1984, Akira Toriyama met Kunihiro Suzuki, a man who work in the mid-scale models, by his assistant Takashi Matsuyama. Two years later, in 1986, Kunihiro Suzuki called Toriyama to help him in his task of creation for a model of female auxiliary of the Wehrmach named LISA. Toriyama realized the design of the box and the assembly instructions. It was the first model in the market that was designed by "amateur". The model LISA came in a very limited edition, and was very successful. In September 1987, the duo reformed with this time a futuristic hovercraft they named Scout Mobile Tongpoo. Just as Lisa, Scout Mobile Tongpoo was a success. Kunihiro Suzuki finally ended up creating his own company in 1991, named Fine Molds and based in Nagoya, close to Toriyama's Bird Studio. After two successful collaborations, it is natural that Kunihiro Suzuki asked Toriyama to make the company logo. In 1999, Toriyama gave a facelift to the company logo, and based it on the company's dog. For the occasion, a model of the dog was produced for a contest. In 1992, the collaboration between Kunihiko Suzuki and Akira Toriyama reborn for three years for a new collection named World Fighter Collection. The series consists of seven models of soldiers (the same number as the Dragon Balls) with emblematic weapons. Akira Toriyama made the assembly instructions and the packaging. The first character came out in fall 1992: a waffen SS with a Czech ZB-26 machine gun that Toriyama drew in SD. The second model is a U.S. Army soldier with a Thompson M1A1. The third is a Japanese military with a 38 6.5 mm type rifle. The fourth is a woman of the USSR Army with a PPSH1941. The fifth is a woman of the U.S. Army with a Colt M16A2. The sixth is a man of the German army with a MG 34. The seventh and last is a Japanese military with a Type 64 Assault Rifle that came out in 1994. In 2008, the magazine specialized in scale model Armour Modelling held a contest with the help of Fine Molds. Akira Toriyama is requested for two covers of the magazine, and the design and implementation of the model. The result of this work was shown at the Model Hobby Show 2008. Other works (2008-Present) In 2008, Akira Toriyama began working on manga projects with his long-time best friend Masakazu Katsura. With Katsura drawing the illustrations and Toriyama writing the story, the two widely known manga artists made Sachi-chan Gū!! (2008) and Jiya (2009–2010). In 2009, Toriyama was commissioned by Avex Trax to draw a portrait of pop singer Ayumi Hamasaki. This portrait was printed on the CD of her single "Rule/Sparkle". Akira Toriyama made a new one-shot, titled Kintoki, released in November 2010, making this manga his first solo project with an original story since Sand Land in 2000. Akira Toriyama collaborated with Shōnen Jump to create a video to raise awareness and support for those affected by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on March 11.12 In 2013, he received a special award at the 40th Angoulême International Comics Festival in France. As part of the 45th anniversary celebration of Jump, Toriyama made a manga series titled Jaco the Galactic Patrolman, which debuted in the July 13, 2013 issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump and ended in the September 30, 2013 issue.